Sorcha Dallas

Art Positions P1

“Ever since the first murder, the big eaters have sucked the life blood out of the small eaters. The strong constantly prey on the weak; each one swallows his neighbour and then gets swallowed up in turn. Beware of the Fat my friend!” Emile Zola, “The Belly of Paris” (p191)

For his Solo Position at Art Basel Miami Charlie Hammond has developed an entirely new body of work entitled “Some Recent Spillages”. This title refers partly to the paintings subjects (that of human spillages) and partly to the very nature of his approach to art making – the allowing of mistakes to become part of the process.

While discussing his work recently the artist has commented: “Painting is for me a significant art making tool. My control of the material (that of spreading dirt) as well as the content is continually relinquished and regained. The more I’ve excepted paintings failings and limitations the more useful a medium it’s become.”

This installation brings together a range of paintings, some containing ceramic elements attached to their surface, others placed alongside. The paintings take the form of portraits mostly made up using the motif of the piechart. Hammond has used this device previously however in this instance it is used as both the representation of bureaucratic completeness as well as existing as nothing more than a colour wheel. Hammond is interested in the almost banal idea of using a visual device to summarise statistical information. The individual titles of these characters play on this idea further and hint at the devices own failures and hopefully that of the subjects depicted. Through using this process Hammond’s initial motivations for the selection of these devices is lost and soon they too become another tool for constructing images.

Hammond was born in Aylesbury in 1979, and graduated from the painting department at Glasgow School of Art in 2002. Recent exhibitions include group shows at Broadway 1602, New York and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. In 2007 he had solo shows at Sorcha Dallas, Glasgow and Anton Kern Gallery, New York, and was selected for ‘Expanded Painting 2’ at the 3rd Prague Biennale. He currently has a solo show at Michael Benevento, Los Angeles and is in the group show ‘Dogtooth and Tessellate’ at The Approach, London. Hammond is based in Glasgow.

SUPPORTED BY THE SCOTTISH ARTS COUNCIL, www.scottisharts.co.uk